


the soul that you used to be

by plinys



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Force Ghosts, Ghost Sex, Ghosts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 15:31:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6991324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In his self imposed exile on Tatooine, Obi-Wan is haunted by the ghost of Anakin. In this case literally. What Obi-Wan originally thinks to be nothing more than a hallucination brought on by the desert heat turns out to be so much more than that. The Force ghost appears in many forms, from the familiar clone wars general, to the Padawan he had missed, to the Sith that had fought him on Mustafar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the soul that you used to be

**Author's Note:**

> So this was supposed to be my Obikin Big Bang, but due to computer troubles it ended up being about a week late. Very very sorry about that (I really need to buy a better computer soon oops...) Special thanks to my wonderful artist that made [this](http://faolans.tumblr.com/post/144643279831/work-for-the-obikin-big-bang-the-fic-this-scene) AMAZING piece of art to go with the fic, and to my wonderful beta @malogranatum on tumblr!

_There is no emotion, there is peace._

_There is no ignorance, there is knowledge._

_There is no passion, there is serenity._

_There is no chaos, there is harmony._

_There is no death, there is the Force._

                                                - the Jedi Code

 

**

 

He lasts a week on Tatooine before the nightmares start.

The sorrow of everything and everyone he’s lost lingering too deep, bearing down on him, such that when he sleeps all he is greeted with is a black oblivion that ends far too soon. Waking once again, alone in his desert hut, sand slipping in under the bottom of the door frame, an unbearably hot sun shining down on him, and an endless stretch of solitude before him.

Foolishly he wishes for dreams, wishes to escape this hell that he had burdened himself with. His self imposed exile.

He would have taken back that wish in an instant had he known what he was asking for.

The nightmares when they finally come are never ending, and always the same, constant in their unchanging manner

They comes to him slowly, in parts, glimpses of a place he would forget if given the chance.

_Mustafar_.

Obi-Wan is certain that that planet will haunt him until his dying day.

The feeling of flames mere inches from his skin lingers in his memory. He spends a day rubbing absentmindedly at his elbows, searching his robes desperately for the hint of fire crawling up them.

The scent of burning flesh lingers in the back of his throat. Turning his stomach, he dry heaves into the sand, until the taste fades away.

The visions are what he would’ve considered worst of all. Angry yellow sith eyes staring into his own, lightsabers clashing in a vicious pursuit of each other, heading out and knowing that he’ll never bridge the distance between their hands again.

Then his voice returns.

 

**

 

_“I hate you.”_

The first time he hears Anakin’s voice again - the memory of it, nothing more - he wakes with a shock, unable to remember how to breathe. For a second Obi-Wan swears that he is the one dying, that the Force has finally come to take him from this cruel fate.

He would’ve welcomed it.

Would’ve welcomed the cool embrace of death.

The Force taking back what it had given to him.

Instead, he is left here, in his bed, struggling to breathe.

Anakin’s voice echoes in his head long after he has woken from the dream, the cruel accusations haunting him, that which he had often feared as a young master having finally been proven true.

He did this.

He created the monster that had destroyed the Jedi.

He failed the boy from Tatooine.

He lost the one person he had loved with his entire being.

He killed Anakin Skywalker.

 

**

 

There were many dangers of foresight. The gift was often secretly considered a burden among the Jedi, getting glimpse of futures that might have been and might never be, plagued by the memories of all these _what ifs_ and being unable to change them.

He had tried to tell Anakin this, years ago, when the boy had first been his apprentice.

Explaining that sometimes dreams were not just dreams, that they could be more, had confused the young one. He’d asked back then, if Obi-Wan ever dreamed, truly dreamed, never a vision or a message from the Force.

Dismissing the notion had been easy. He’d used the familiar words of his former master. _“Everything is the will of the Force,”_ and believed them.

He tries to tell himself that now, as he wakes yet again to Anakin’s voice in the middle of the night.

It works for a moment, long enough to regulate his breathing, to peel his sweat soaked sleep tunic from his skin.

That is until he sees it. A flicker of something blue lingering at the end of his bed, and that same familiar voice that has plagued his nightmares speaking out, in a lighter cadance, one that he had so desperately missed.

“Kriff the Force.”

 

**

 

He’s seeing things.

Hallucinating is the easiest of answers.

Blaming the desert heat for finally getting to him.

What else would explain the flickers of blue light at the edge of his vision?

A soft familiar color, like that of the lightsaber he keeps hidden away or the lakes of Naboo. The hint of light both haunts and comforts him, waging an internal war that Obi-Wan has no ability to control.

Sometimes he reaches out towards the hint of light, both physically and with the Force, hoping that it will manifest into something clear, something tangible.

At night, paranoia pulses through him. The sensation of being watched in near constant on Tatooine, the curse of being in hiding on a planet where the natives blend into the sand surrounding them.

But this is so much more than that.

The Force surges around him with each flash of light, a familiar sensation that washes over him, and leaves nothing but loneliness in its wake.

It no longer welcomes him as it once had since he was a child.

The loss of life, of his fellow Jedi, those sensitive to the ways of the Force, is too great to reconcile, each brush against it bringing only memories of pain and torment.

 

**

 

_There is no emotion, there is peace._

 

**

 

Sleep evades him.

Mediation near impossible.

Times inevitably goes on.

 

**

 

He calls out for Qui-Gon some nights. Rare ones when he is too desperate not to do so. Remembers Yoda’s parting words to him, that there was some way to reach through the veil of time, through the Force, if only he knew how.

There's a small part of him that hopes his blue light will belong to his master, that finally they will be reunited. That Qui-Gon’s light will offer him comfort, just as he had when they were master and padawan.  

In a moment of foolish hope he calls out to one of the flashes of light, barely able to stand the desperation in his voice as he asks of the light who they'd once been.

The light flickers out with no reply, and when it doesn't return for a week following, he gives up any belief that the light might have belonged to Qui-Gon.

Hopelessness does not suit a Jedi. Nor does hope.

Perhaps in another life it might have, but no...

He was not made for such things.

 

**

 

The nightmares come back.

He should've expected as much.

The second his eyes slip shut, he's brought back there again, back to Mustafar. To the fire, to the hopelessness, to his personal failure.

In his dreams he lets Anakin win, refuses to kill the boy.

He will always refuse to lay that final blow. It was as he had told Master Yoda, he could not kill Anakin. Instead of plunging his saber through his former padawan’s heart and offering him an easy death, he had walked away, leaving him to burn.

In his dreams he regrets this. Regrets not giving Anakin another chance. Regrets not putting him out of his misery.

Each dream he tries something different, some way to stop the inevitable.

It doesn't matter - nothing changes, the story plays on as it always has.

He comes back to himself in the dark of his room, a scream torn from his lips.

There's panic running through him, a side effect of the dream, which is why he startles so suddenly to see the familiar blue glow at the end of his bed.

Reflectively Obi-Wan shuts his eyes once more, tight enough that he cannot see the glow through his eyelids.

He wills this to be yet another dream.

He forces himself to breathe, forces the air back in and out of his lungs, and then opens his eyes once more - the figure at the edge of his bed is still there, glowing and blue but unmistakably Anakin.

His nightmare come to life before him.

“For Force’s sake.”

A yellowed gaze meets his own, the only part of the specter before him that is not that familiar blue.

Though he supposes even this is _familiar_.

“I must say I expected a better welcome,” the ghost of Anakin says, but not before tacking on a, “Master,” with a bitter twist of his lips.

“This is a dream,” he says, tries to reassure himself of this. “I'm still dreaming.”

Accepting this is easier than accepting the alternative.

Dreams or hallucinations made more sense than the alternative.

“You're not really here.”

This gets a reaction out of his hallucination.

Anger on Anakin’s fine features, a look that reminds him of fires and the end of everyone he had cared for in this life.

Cruelty is not a good look on him.

He says as much before forcing himself into the embrace of sleep once more.

 

**

 

Anakin is still there in the morning, still angry with him, features twisted from the boy Obi-Wan knew into that of the Sith he had found on Mustafar.

His hallucination finally has a solid form. Despite having wished as much many times before, Obi-Wan does not find comfort in this. He cannot. Not when he sees what his light turned into.

He keeps his tone dry when he raises his eyes to meet Anakin's, “You're still here then.”

There's no answer, just the unwavering glare.

Obi-Wan looks away first. This somehow does not feel like defeat. He wonders if it should have.

“Right then,” he steps around the hallucination. Unable to walk through him even though Obi-Wan knows that there is no one physically in his path. “I need tea.”

He pads on bare feet into the kitchen, unable to tell if his hallucination has followed him, and unwilling to look behind and check. Instead he does as he has ever morning since he arrived on Tatooine, and sets about making root tea, water rare enough that he could not enjoy his Sapir tea as he would've back on Coruscant.

For a while there is silence. A familiar silence.

Obi-Wan makes his tea. Grabs a piece of dry bread for breakfast. Pours out a cup when the kettle has whistled.

It is what comes next that caused him to hesitate.

He feels more trepidation in turning around than he had during his years as a Jedi.

Eventually he does turn, holding his teacup steady in his hands.

The hallucination is still there. This time lingering at the edge of his small table.

“I would offer you some, but I don't suppose hallucinations can drink tea.”

This finally earns him a reaction from the specter of Anakin.

Anger once more.

So much anger that Obi-Wan can feel it inside of him pressing against their phantom bond.

“I'm not a hallucination.”

Obi-Wan makes a noise in reply that is not quite dismissal, but is close enough. “Ah, yes, exactly the sort of thing a hallucination would say.”

The anger continues as Obi-Wan takes a sip of his now cooled tea.

 

**

 

It is easy enough to ignore the hallucination.

He walks around it with an air of indifference.

In return he gets words of anger, shouted at him in a voice that seems more like a whisper on the wind.

He wonders how much longer this will last.

 

**

 

_There is no ignorance, there is knowledge._

 

**

 

His hallucination cannot seem to follow him outside the walls of his home. It lingers there in the open doorway when Obi-Wan goes out into the sands. Watching him endlessly with an unblinking gaze.

At first he tries to meditate out in the sands, slipping into the familiar stance. But he can feel the gaze of his hallucination in the back of his mind, a nagging presence that makes it impossible for him to concentrate. Meditation is as impossible as ever.

He takes more trips into Mos Eisley because of this.

Spends his days wandering through the stands, shopping and bartering in lieu of meditation.

He finds himself at the Mos Eisley Cantina more often than not. Spending what credits he has on hand in search of something to drink.

It would be all too easy to lose himself to drink.

He had been close before. Had been caught indulging far too often even when he was a Jedi.

There had been sanctions brought up against him once, following the death of Qui-Gon, a mandated trip to the mind healers. Words had been exchanged, cautionary tales about the dangers of attachment and the addiction of forgetting. He’d made promises back then, to only ever drink in moderation, to cling to the code and their order, rather than letting a vice taking his control from him. Take his mind from him.

He would give anything to forget now.

Another drink is the easiest path, flagging the bartender down, until the lights start to sway before his eyes.

The Mos Eisley Cantina isn't the place to be when you've gone too far, the creatures inside all too willing to rob him dry before helping him home.

The night air is cool against his face, a slap against his constantly too hot skin. He relishes in the sensation of it before boarding the speeder that he's not in the proper state of mind to drive.

By the will of the Force he makes it back to his hovel safely.

He is unsure if this is a blessing or a curse.

Anakin is still there, standing exactly where Obi-Wan had left him, looking as if not a moment had passed. He blurs a bit at the edges, but otherwise it is still Anakin, looking just as he had the very last time Obi-Wan saw him, if one ignored the way his form was now a nearly translucent blue.

_Dead_.

He was dead, this wasn’t a hallucination. His drunken mind all too able to see what his sober mind had refused to.

Obi-Wan looks up to meet his gaze, to look at the only part of Anakin that doesn’t glow blue, the bright yellow eyes - _sith_ eyes - meeting his, unwavering.

“You’re really here, aren’t you? This isn’t just - ” he stops, unable to finish the sentence. Drink has made his tongue heavy, but it is not what he had downed at the cantina that leaves him in this state.

No, it’s the man before him, the man that he killed, left to burn on that wretched planet, now come back to - What? Haunt him? The notion was so absurd that believe him to be nothing more than a hallucination had been easier to deal with.

“You’re dead.”

Something relaxes in Anakin’s figure before him, as if a weight was finally lifted from his shoulders. The yellow that had tainted his face fades away, stealing with it those angry eyes, and leaving a more familiar expression on his features.

“That depends on how you define dead.”

 

**

 

Accepting who he is makes the hallucination more reasonable.

_Ghost_ , not hallucination.

This distinction takes considerable mental effort, but it is worth it, for all the loneliness that it brings.

Anakin is dead. And yet, he is here.

 

**

 

He wakes in the morning, a familiar pain lingering in the back of his mind, hangovers serving as a comforting reminder that he is still alive.

His body is heavy as he moves out of the bed, feet slightly unsteady as they find the ground beneath them. He closes his eyes to stop the room from spinning, sucks in a shallow breath to steady himself.

There is a cool touch against his forehead like a burst of cold air, and when Obi-Wan opens his eyes he is greeted by proof that last night was not all just an alcohol induced dream.

Anakin is standing there, looking younger than he had in a long time, more like a senior Padawan than the Knight Obi-Wan had last seen. A Padawan braid trails down, falling over his shoulder, brushing against his wrinkled sleep robes.

This time when he says, “Master,” it is familiar and comforting. “You should not have drank so much last night.”

“It was easier…” Obi-Wan trails off, unwilling to finish the sentence.

The ghost of his former Padawan nods in understanding.

“You should make tea, and eat. Eating will help,” Anakin's voice is steady and sure, “Do you have that one tea - from the healers - the uh…”

“Jeru,” Obi-Wan supplies, before shaking his head.

What he wouldn't give for a cup of Jeru ea, but his supply was back in the ruins of the temple if anywhere at all and the healers were dead.

“Rootgrass tea will have to do.”

“I suppose it must,” Obi-Wan consents.

Moving away from that cool ghost of a touch nearly pains him.

His breath comes shallower now.

“I always hated Rootgrass tea, tastes too much coarse, like sand.”

The normality of these words helps to ground Obi-Wan. “It is quite earthy.”

“I believe the word you were looking for, Master, is disgusting.”

“You always did prefer caf. How you developed a taste for it I'll never understand.”

“For one it doesn't taste like sandy leaves.”

 

**

 

Gone is the malice that had haunted his days before, replaced with a familiar sense of something almost like happiness, something that leaves him aching.

Every memory recounted, every joke shared, tainted by what he has done. What they both have done.

There are some topics they both carefully avoid.

Obi-Wan is thankful for that.

Sidestepping the awful truths between them. The conversations turn trivial more often than not, words said again and again in the same manner that they always had.

When Anakin calls him, ‘ _Master’,_ his voice lifts up at the end, teasing almost.

If he closes his eyes and listens to Anakin’s voice, the familiar cadence and tones, he can almost imagine that they are back in the war. Living like each tomorrow might be their last.

What Obi-Wan wouldn’t give to have those days back.

He missteps, says the wrong thing at the wrong time, words falling from his lips carelessly without thinking when a bout of nostalgia hits him. “Somedays I miss the war.”

Anakin freezes. The ghost going unnaturally still - though no part of him is truly _natural._  

When he finally speaks it is with a dry tone, lacking the hint of happiness his voice had carried before.

“There’s still a war out there, Master.”

Obi-Wan knows this.

It’s impossible not to know it.

And yet, here he remains.

“It’s not the same.” The _not without you_ goes unspoken.

 

**

  


Often Anakin appears before him in this Padawan form. Old enough to be considered a man, yet still young enough to linger by Obi-Wan’s side and call him master.

It is this Anakin that he had missed the most over the years, and it is this Anakin that comes to him now.

Still, there are rare times he will appear in other forms

One night he wakes, frightened of his own nightmares continuing to haunt him, to find a childlike Anakin sitting on the edge of his bed. This is how he had looked in their first year together, features soft and concerned, feet dangling off the edge, unable to touch the ground.

Another day he is greeted with the hero of the clone wars. Face unscarred, but with lines at edges of his eyes and tired circles underneath them. He carries the burdens on his shoulders, talking of concerns for his troops and for his own Padawan as though no time has passed, as though the war is still going on around them.

Rather than another war having taken its place in the galaxy.

 

**

 

The peace he had found comfort in cannot last.

Obi-Wan knows this.

Despite that he clings to it, foolishly.

If only for one more day.

 

**

 

_There is no passion, there is serenity._

 

**

 

There are days Anakin's ghost purposely tries to set him off.

Anakin had always known the best ways to hurt him, to stir something unpleasant within Obi-Wan. He had learned this far too young, and Obi-Wan should have known better than to expect that he would have forgotten these tricks in death.

Often times he does it in a way that almost feels like old times, like when they shared an apartment together in the Jedi temple, and Anakin was nothing more than a petulant teenager. His complaints are childish in a familiar way. Easy enough to push aside, and ignore the intention to harm in each word.

Other times he’ll come out with a vindictive streak, harmful in the way Obi-Wan only ever saw him on that Force forsaken planet. His lips curling into a sneer before he says things like, “Maybe if you were a better master none of this would’ve happened.”

It’s one of the latter times when he’s had too much.

There’s a Tatooine sandstorm raging outside, rivaling the sound of the vicious voice meaning to tear him down, bringing all of his worst fears to life. The what-if’s that had plagued him from his first weeks as Anakin’s master to the very last.

“If you hadn’t let Qui-Gon die-”

“That’s enough.”

He has to put a stop to it, can’t hear those words once more, not in that voice, the one he had always feared would spew these accusations at him in their lives.

“Anakin, that’s - that’s enough.”

He means to push his former apprentice away, forgetting for a second that he’s not truly there. That he is nothing more than a Force damned apparition, lingering in the empty space to plague him. His hand slips through the translucent form of the other man, hitting against the wall of his dwelling rather than the soft flesh of another living being.

Because Anakin is not alive.

He’s dead.

Every reminder of this fact felt like a punch to the gut, and the anger that had been building inside of him seems to slip away in that second. How can he be angry at Anakin, when it is _he_ who did this to him.

Obi-Wan’s hand that tainted the boy, that pushed him to the edge.

He’d never got a chance to ask what it was that he had done, what had been enough to turn the boy he had raised against the order that had nurtured them.

Even if he were to ask now, he is uncertain of whether he would believe the answer, still unwilling to trust his own mind.

Instead he says, what he’s told himself too many times to count. “You’re right, Qui-Gon would have been the better master for you, were I lucky enough to have been the one to die on Naboo.”

There’s no expected look of triumph on Anakin’s features.

Instead his eyes are a soft sad blue that Obi-Wan refuses to meet, turning away from his ghostly form, better to brave the sandstorm than to sit and see the accusations that linger on those features.

 

**

 

The next time the ghost appears he is kinder, smaller as well. Barely more than a boy, fiddling with his freshly braided padawan braid, feet unable to touch the ground as he _sits_ upon one of Obi-Wan’s kitchen chairs.

It is in that meek voice of a child fresh from slavery that he says, “Sorry.”

Obi-Wan wonders half-heartedly if this is why Anakin has chosen to appear in his child form, knowing that Obi-Wan would always grant that boy whatever he had desired. Desperate to please and prove himself a capable master, he had let Anakin get away with far too much.

When Obi-Wan does not speak he continues.

“You were a good master, the best I’ve ever had.”

It is at this that he finally lifts his gaze from the stone tabletop, his eyes meeting Obi-Wan’s across the living space, so earnest and desperate for his approval. They both had been that way, clinging to each other without realizing it, needing a sign that this had not been going tragically wrong.

For all his lectures about foregoing attachment, the truth was Obi-Wan had been attached from the moment Anakin came into his life.

“I loved you,” Anakin says, softest of all, “I never hated you. Not until the end, and even then...”

Anakin doesn’t finish the sentence.

Obi-Wan cannot tell if this is a blessing or a curse.

 

**

 

“I loved you.”

When he says the words this time, it’s not an admission of a forbidden emotional attachment to the man that had been his mentor, but so much more. An attachment that in his life Obi-Wan would have never encouraged.

No, these were the sorts of private thoughts he kept to himself at night. Shame burning in his cheeks as he brought himself off by hand each night, refusing to admit that he was picturing the boy that he had all but raised now a grown man underneath him, desperate for Obi-Wan to be the one to bring him pleasure.

The sorts of thoughts that the specter before him was all to happy to bring up. “I’ve watched you touch yourself at night, since I’ve been back.”

His tone is not vindictive, not just yet, but it’s nearing that frightening _sith_ tone that sends a chill down Obi-Wan’s spine. Never a tone he heard pass from Anakin’s lips, not when he was young yet, a padawan brain, ripe for cutting, falling down over his exposed shoulder.

Obi-Wan barely manages to remember how to speak. “That is a private matter, padawan.”

Anakin ignores him.

“Do you imagine me?” he asks instead. “I often hoped you did.”

Denial is the easiest thing to do. “Never. That would be highly inappropriate, Anakin, I’ve known you since you were a boy.”

An angry sigh escapes Anakin’s lips. “I’m not a boy any longer.”

“You look quite the part,” Obi-Wan quips unable to stop himself.

Another noise of displeasure, before the figure before him shifts, shining a blue that’s almost blinding before he settles in an older form. Dressed as he had during the Clone Wars, a battle-worn expression lingering in his still too young features.

“I’m dead Obi-Wan, what I look like is neither here nor there. It’s how you imagine me.”

“I already told you I didn’t-”

“I hated it when you lied to me,” Anakin admits, “And you’re trying to change the topic. I used to feel you through the Force when we lived together, I never knew what you were thinking - no, your shields were too good for that - but I could feel the budding hints of your pleasure across that apartment we shared as master and padawan. I would touch myself imagining it was you, how your hands might have felt on my cock, you calluses from holding your saber, the way you fidget with your thumb. You’d touch me different than how I touched myself, but I could never get it exactly right. I know that now.”

“Anakin-” he says, even that word feeling like a struggle, his throat suddenly far too dry. He swallows anyways, unable to miss how Anakin’s eyes follow the bobbing of his throat.

When the ghost of his former apprentice says, “Touch yourself for me,” despite every warning bell going off in Obi-Wan’s head, he cannot deny either of them this last chance at a pleasure neither could properly give or receive.

He holds Anakin’s gaze as he slips his hands downwards to free his cock from his leggings. The shame mixes with pleasure as he gives in to what he had so often deprived himself of before.

 

**

 

His ghost is more tolerable the next day. Almost pleasant as he moves about reminiscing of times gone by with a smile on his face.

Obi-Wan’s sins of the night before are left unspoken. No mention of it between either of them save for a low chuckle from Anakin first thing in the morning and a quip about _sex hair_ as Obi-Wan combs through the mess on his head with deft fingers.

“Well we cannot all be as gifted by genetics as you were,” Obi-Wan says, pointing out the dark waves of curls framing Anakin’s face in his fully grown form.

“Jealousy does not suit you, Master,” Anakin replies his tone light and teasing.

There's the hint of a sensation that follows, the light pressure of phantom fingers shifting the waves of his hair. Gone the second Obi-Wan tries to focus his mind on it.

 

**

 

“You’re mine, you know that.”

“I always have been,” Obi-Wan admits.

It’s the truth, a truth he cannot deny. He’s unsure of why he ever had tried to before, when the evidence would have been plain for anyone to see had they only ever bothered to look. He wonders if this admission should frighten him, as it goes against all of the Jedi ideals that he had built his foundation and life upon.

But the Jedi Order was gone.

Just as Anakin was gone.

Could the ghosts fault him for taking hold on what little seems to remain before him.

He finds himself so lost in his internal crisis, that he nearly misses when Anakin speaks a moment later. Uncharacteristic hesitancy in his voices. “And I am yours.”

 

**

 

_There is no chaos, there is harmony._

 

**

 

In the end, he will always blame himself.

For failing to fill the space Qui-Gon had left behind.

For holding too tightly and not tight enough.

For the deaths of everyone he had ever been foolish enough to love.

For the fall which in hindsight seemed inevitable.

And for --

 

**

 

The boy is so small. Barely an infant, innocent in a way his father never was. He doesn't cry, curled up against his Aunt’s chest, resting in peaceful slumber.

Obi-Wan’s still uncertain why he came. The Force had called out to him, a panic sense stirred him from his bed, and out into the desert to the home of Owen and Beru.

Though now as he lays eyes upon the sleeping infant he knows he was foolish to have been concerned.

Beru reflects the concern, concern that he is no doubt projecting, on her face.

“Luke will be okay, won't he?”

He nods once and then once more.

He starts to rise from his seat to leave now that his fears have been soothed.

“Stay for lunch, Owen will be back soon and-”

“Then I really must be going,” Obi-Wan insists. Remembering all too well how the last conversation the two of them had had had gone. “Another time.”

“Another time,” she agrees, before seeing him off.

It is not a long trek through the sands.

He lives close enough to be able to keep an eye on Luke, close enough to intervene if worse came to worse.

He regrets that distance now, as he steps into his hideaway, thoughts of Luke’s well being on his mind.

The ghost lingers in his entry way, looking vicious for the first time in weeks.

“Where have you been?”

It's an accusation. One Obi-Wan refuses to answer to.

“It is not as if I am confined to this home, Anakin. An errand at the market or-”

“No.”

“No?”

“I can sense--” Anakin starts then stops. Anger coloring his features. He never explains exactly what he can sense. Instead he just says low and angry, “You said you were mine.”

His Padawan had always been a possessive child.

A blemish in the eyes of the Jedi. Something which no doubt aided his fall.

It’s too late to stop it, too late to stop the anger from spilling between them of all the things yet unsaid. When he looks up and meets that horrid yellowed gaze, he’ll wish he had thought of a way to avoid this confrontation. Having no Anakin at all would have been better than meeting that sith stare head on.

“You never loved me,” Anakin says. An attack not against Obi-Wan, but against the truth in his words. This almost hurts more than any hatred Anakin would have thrown his way.

Doubts that had plagued them both for so long.

“No matter how much I loved you - you could never love me. Not until it was too late, until you had left me to die.”

“Anakin, you know that's not-”

“Don't lie to me!”

He wants to insist that he wouldn't, that he'd never, but he can't.

There'd been times before, little things when it was easier than speaking the truth. When he clung to the code like a lifeline and foolishly tried to make Anakin do the same.

A cruel part of him considers that he deserves this.

To be haunted in such a manner.

Fit punishment for his transgressions.

“I'm sorry,” he says.

For there is nothing else to say.

The gaze of the Sith before him meets his eyes once more. Angry yellow tearing him apart from within.

And then just as sudden as he'd first appeared, Anakin disappeared.

 

**

 

A message from a Jedi sympathizer will come the next morning, a holo recording passed from hand to hand, nearly lost on the way too many times to count. A recording that he will hold in his own palms for far too long, unwilling to hear the message that will surely break the last hold he has to his thin illusion of peace on this desert planet.

The figure on the holo speaks in a voice that’s tried and true, “Vader is alive and on the hunt for any Jedi that survived the temple massacre. This will be our last correspondence for the foreseeable future. I wish you well, Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

He will admit later that he always knew the truth.

That it had been the will of the Force.

But in that moment, as the holo flickers off, its message finally delivered, he cannot help but hold his breath and hope foolishly for his _ghost_ to return once more, for this all to have been nothing more than a bad dream.

He should have known better than to hope.

**

 

_There is no death, there is the Force._

  



End file.
